


Lovesick

by BlueRedSaltySeas



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Canon universe cursing, Canon-Typical Violence, Cyberpunk 2077-Typical Violence, F/M, Heart Attack, Hurt/Comfort, Not Beta Read, SilverV, Soft Johnny Silverhand, Takes place during/after the Final Mission to the questline "Beat on the Brat", Trust Issues, Wrote this to fill a fanfic gap in my actual 2nd playthrough of the game, but i read it like three times so i think its probably fine, if it has typos thats future me's problem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:00:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28726239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueRedSaltySeas/pseuds/BlueRedSaltySeas
Summary: Since the hotel, since they talked, she feels like she’s been kicked in the gut; there’s something sharp near her heart that shouldn’t be there, just another thing to weigh her down, along with the fear that she’s placing her trust in someone who doesn’t deserve it. There’s panic in her chest, a headache taking root; she’s dying and this is accelerating it, whether she dies from the trauma of this fight or dies now in this ring or dies from the chip, she’s dying, left by a helicopter as it ascends with a teal haired woman--
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand/Female V
Comments: 5
Kudos: 91





	Lovesick

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this to fill a fanfic gap in my 2nd playthrough. This takes place after the Hotel Pistis Sophia scene but before Chippin' In. It also takes place during/after the final mission of the side quest "Beat on the Brat" (the line of fights you can do across Night City) My streetkid V is falling for Johnny but also has trust issues out the ass, especially in regard to him, so this is her kind of dealing with it all through fighting and panic and dying.

The hit comes hard. The first hit is always hard, because you aren’t in that mode just yet- ready to accept the hits, push through ‘em. The first one is always like a cold bucket of ice water poured on your head.  
  
The pain comes harder, fast too; he’s hit her cheek, she can feel blood pouring from the wound and the whiplash that comes briefly makes her want to puke.  
  
But she hits back. She gets a glimpse of the silver hand overlaid on her own; superimposed, Razor can’t see it, but she does, and watches as it sails into Razor like it did Thompson at Arasaka— _No, no, focus._

Her vision glitches in blue pixels She strikes at his abdomen like Vik said to, catches him wince, is pretty sure she hears a groan and then she’s shoved onto her back, head rolled to the left, watching as the silver arm stretches out and it’s about to be shot off by Smasher- _V._ _Focus **.**_ **  
  
**She can’t. Since the hotel, she feels like she’s been kicked in the gut, there’s something sharp near her heart that shouldn’t be there, just another thing to weigh her down, along with the fear that she’s placing her trust in someone who doesn’t deserve it. There’s panic in her chest, a headache taking root; she’s dying and this is accelerating it, whether she dies from the trauma or dies now in this ring or dies from the chip, she’s dying, left by a helicopter as it ascends with a teal haired woman—  
  
_V, fuck, move--!_  
  
She rolls to avoid the incoming punch that hits hard into the mat instead of her face, or rather her body moves on its own as she sure as shit didn’t make the decision to do so, didn’t react that fast, didn’t snap out of it so fast—

Johnny. Of course.

It’s always Johnny. Johnny’s the problem, the answer, the comfort; he’s the rocky seas in the storm and the life preserver, tossed from a sinking ship and it all feels pointless, all feels red hot, her blood boils.  
  
Dragging herself to her feet, she charges Razor, lands punch after punch after punch against Thompson’s face on the floor by Alt’s dead corpse, wants it to be Johnny so she can finally feel like she isn’t being an idiot, wants to just have control over her life again but she can’t because its all so fucked, fuck, fuck, FUCK!

Razor shoves her back, grips her throat, lifts her and throws her into the section of unbroken rope so hard it feels it too will give out like its siblings that surround the ring in their broken efforts.

Then its hit, after hit, after hit, after hit, again and again; the bitter tang of blood coats her mouth, Vik’s panicked yells echo from the sidelines, the crowd is descending into chaos—

_V, fight, we are not going out like this—_

She’s somehow spread too thin and wound too tight, she can’t breathe and maybe its because of the panic overtaking her or maybe Razor’s broke a rib and it’s pierced her lung, it’s the absence of breath, like lying on a hotel room floor, a bullet to the head, a best friend who fades away in the backset of a car, unplugging a lover, Jackie’s eyes, Alt’s eyes, not meeting his, hers, theirs, _FUCK_ —

His silver arm, her arm, reaches out in a quick jab at Razor’s nose to stun him, then blocks the incoming hit, and she follows it without much say, whether its reflex or the chip she doesn’t know but the silver arm hits, again and again while Razor stumbles and tries to recover. _Fuck, V! Whatever the fuck this is, snap out of it! I can’t keep this up—Fuck, V, Help me—_

And fuck, if that isn’t the only thing she hears- Johnny fucking Silverhand asking for help, because fuck, Razor might kill her, and if she dies, so does he and she’ll be damned—

She lands a hard hit, then another, then a follow up that throws Razor back onto the mat.

She will be damned if she’s gonna’ let this piss-poor bullying excuse for a fighter flatline them both here and now.

Hit after hit flies and she isn’t quite sure when Johnny is able to pull back and give her back control, or even if he consciously pushed through to take control in the first place or if it was just survival instinct; it wouldn’t be the first time he’s pushed through to take control in some capacity. He’s pulled her into shadows when gangoons nearly spotted her on gigs, yanked her out of the way of bullets that surely would’ve hit, lit up a smoke, but he’s never been able to go this far for this long. Though then again that was weeks ago; this is now, this is worse, everything is worse now but she can’t think about that now, not when she’s finally free, finally feeling alive, feeling the rush of adrenaline coursing through her veins, her heart in her throat, her head clear and focused only on beating Razor to a pulp until Fred calls it—

And when he finally does, and she steps down the steps to Vik, who greets her with a smile, she can feel it all drifting away.

“Slick work, kid.”

“Heh,” V chuckles, spits blood onto the floor before she says with a lopsided grin and foggy vision, “had a good coach in my corner…”

And then she hits the floor and the last thing that meets her ears is Vik’s panicked shout of her name.

  
  


She’s not awake.

The world around her is; it shifts and ebbs and is just a little bit nonsensical, like how the hill of the street she’s standing in the middle of repeats on the opposite side of town, how the night city towers sit a bit too low to be skyscrapers, how the ads on the sides are just jumbled lines trying desperately to look like letters.

“V,” Johnny calls her name and she turns until she finds him, leaning against a streetlight. The sky is dark now and no stars are to be seen; her dream at least gets the light pollution of Night City right. “The hell was that?”

He sounds winded, despite the fact that he’s resting casually, no hint of stress or activity. He’s in his armor, though no shades, and sometimes she hates when he doesn’t wear the shades. His stares can already be too intense with them, and without? Without, his dark eyes feel like they bore into her mind, her soul, her heart, all areas she desperately tries to shield from his view.

“I don’t… I don’t know. Panic attack, maybe? Biochip glitch? Both?”

“Whatever it was, I didn’t like it.”

“Oh gee,” V comments snidely, “Really, that’s a shame because I was thinkin’ of making it an everyday norm; losing control of my body, my mind—”

“You could’ve gotten yourself fuckin’ zeroed, V!” Johnny shouts and suddenly they feel heavy, everything feels heavy and the towers that sit too low press down on them both, crushing them under the weight of Night City. “Fuckin’ hell.” Johnny exhales roughly, pushes off his perch to approach her, hands clenching and unclenching again.

“Where are we, Johnny?”

“Where do you think? Your subconscious. You’re dreamin’…you’re out cold, at Vik’s,” he states coolly, finally coming to a stop a few feet from her, where he stands for a moment, then begins pacing.

“How bad do you think?”

Johnny takes several steps in one direction, then turns on his heel. Several steps back. “I don’t know, couldn’t get a good idea with the anesthesia comin’ in. We’re both in the dark while Vik works his magic.”

Several steps again. Heel turn. Several steps back.

“Johnny?”

He stops in the middle of his fourth step, then turns to face her fully. “I could feel it. That panic, could feel our memories twisting,” he states slowly, as if he’s too angry to even speak the words, so they end up half-clipped and stuck in his throat, but she’s known him a while now. If in the face of fear, she’s flight, then he’s fight. And he can’t exactly punch his way through their jumbled mess of mixed up minds and memories.

She wonders at the more intimate feelings she hopes to shroud from him; the ones that ache in her chest, the ones that shouldn’t even exist, that she should pay no mind, the ones Johnny will likely mock her incessantly for, which would only drive her to dig this biochip out of her skull, sooner rather than later.

“What was it like?” she asks quickly, trying to focus on something that is anything but that.

“Like it was for you.” Johnny states simply, taking a step closer. She notes it of course. She never was good with people in her personal space, and growing up on the streets, she watched for it constantly. When people thought she couldn’t easily kick their ass, hack them within seconds, fry their minds. When small time fixers starting out thought she’d make for an easy mark merc. When the inevitable blade was getting closer to being stabbed into her back, she was constantly on alert, not allowing herself to get trapped anywhere if she could help it, keep space between her and anyone else because the space meant safety, it meant she was that much further from death.

Except, when he takes a step closer, knowingly gauges her reaction, she doesn’t feel that spike of fear, not like she does on the streets, nor does she get hit with the petrifying feelings she felt the night they met in her apartment.

No, now she feels an ache, but a comfort too. For better or for worse, he brings comfort. They both know that, he has to, with the way she’s called out for him during the bad times, during the worser ones too.

Except is that comfort even real? Safe? Trustworthy?

She said she’d take a bullet for him. She meant it. She just… isn’t quite sure he meant it too. But after being at that hotel, she has to trust him, has to trust he’ll keep his word, try to save her.

He’d saved her now, though.

What had Johnny said at the hotel? That this has to run both ways?

“We both know I’m not gonna’ be around to cover your ass like this much longer,” Johnny comments, peering at her cautiously. “Gotta’ know if I’m being wiped, that you aren’t gonna’ get yourself zeroed within a week after I’m gone.”

What almost comes out is ‘Still trying to sell it?’ and when she filters that, its almost ‘I can take care of myself, have been since long before I met you’ and she swallows that down too.

What she finally says after a beat is, “I’ll be okay. Or, who knows, maybe you will, if this all goes tits up before then and we’re too late—”

“V, don’t say that shit. I said I’d fix this. I meant it, alright? Whether you believe it or not.”

Night City flickers through blue pixels and her chest feels far too heavy, her throat tightens like Razor’s still got her in the ring, and suddenly the city feels like it’s spinning. What if this _does_ all go bad, what if she dies, she doesn’t want to die, she’s so fucking scared of dying—

“V, hey,” Johnny tries, but her cheeks feel hot, there’s no air, her chest is tight, too tight, like she’s being crushed.

“ **She’s flatlining”**

Vik?

“Fuck, V, hey, hey—!” Johnny’s arms catch her and they both sink against the asphalt that quickly turns to a dark carpet in a dingy motel room and Dex is approaching, gun in hand.

Fuck, fuck-

“Not here, V, not here, picture anywhere else, c’mon—”

His hands rake up and down her upper arms, trying to get her to focus, on him, on anything, she knows and she’s trying, trying—

The next thing she feels is leather seats, rain pounding the roof of the Delamain and that’s not good either, fuck, fuck, fuck—

Then they’re at Arasaka Towers, sitting in that small little room with a netrunner chair and a dead blonde. “Johnny, don’t help, it’s not helping—”

“Then, fuck, V, do something”

“I’m trying!!”

She screws her eyes tight, feels a jolt, another, both her and Johnny curse, it feels like her nerves are on fire, her chest so so tight, and then…

  
  


Then there’s a sea breeze wafting slowly through the open window. The sunlight filters in blue, then Vik’s voice comes from nowhere and everywhere all at once, “ **Oh thank fuck…She’s stable.”**

 **“** Shit, V—”

Johnny cuts himself off. She doesn’t have to open her eyes to see where they are. It’s Pacifica. It’s the Pistis Sophia. There’s echoes of Johnny and her own voice, mingling as he guides her to his dog tags, discussing how he deserted. Her chest tightens because its here, its now, that she finally acknowledges it.

She’s in love with this brain parasite sitting here asking her if she’d take a bullet for him. She doesn’t know when it first started, or for how long she’s been like this, or why. All she knows is that the idea of death grips her heart in a cold grip, so does the thought of him being reduced to nothing, dying again, and so does going back to her life before him. Alone, all over again, except then she’d have a Jackie _and_ a Johnny shaped void in her chest that she’d never be able to fill.

“V?” Johnny’s voice comes quiet, quiet like when she’d woken up on the walkway of the hotel, when he’d told her to admire the view. His hands still grip her upper arms and all it takes is that simple uttering of her intial to fall apart.

Everything comes into view in this same damn hotel room, except instead of lying down, watching the ceiling fan creak slowly on old tech for a month, it comes like an ocean wave and within seconds, swallows her whole.

Jackie, her impending death, Johnny, the nonstop spiraling of hope and its inevitable demise each time they find a lead only to be told she’s too far gone; it hits and hits and hits and she finally lets out a sob as it breaks through the last of her defenses.

“Johnny-“ She hiccups his name, sobs coming full force now, taking her breath, catching in her throat like fish hooks, yet still she’s once again calling to him when the storm hits, when its all too much, and he has no reason to now, he can leave her here, go wherever he goes when he isn’t around, but instead his arms pull her forward, slow and barely at all but that guiding tug is enough for her to collapse against his chest. She doesn’t care how bad it hurts, only focuses on the warmth, the comfort, because the pain in her chest is far less than the pain of everything in its entirety hitting all at once. She gripes at him like he’s the one thing that can ground her, fisting her hands in his tank top; when had it changed from the vest? She doesn’t know, doesn’t care. The weight of his arms sits around her back, tense and careful and it almost doesn’t feel like he’s breathing, probably because she’s stealing all the air with her quick breaths, struggling to breathe, sobs wracking her body, her throat aching from tension—

“It’s okay, V. I’ve got you.”

Fuck.

Her sobs border on yells and finally he rests his arms fully around her, curls one up to rest against the back of her head, pressing her against him tighter until he’s all-encompassing, rubbing gentle circles into her scalp, and his voice greets her once more; “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” She wonders if he’s getting feedback, or an echo somehow, of her relief, of the love, of the sorrow, of the fear, but she honestly cannot be bothered with walls, and hiding and armor anymore and maybe that’s why his armor disappeared some time ago; maybe he can’t be bothered either. Or maybe they’re constantly in a loop, influencing and influencing one another more and more. At this point, what does it matter? She’s got him, here, now, and if its stupid to cling to this, to him, to this feeling of peace, of _home_ , for as long as possible, then so be it.

Johnny eventually readjusts so his legs are stretched out and she sits, curled up against his chest, tiny and frail and tired but alive, safe, warm, her hands fisted in the fabric of his tank-top, though not as tightly as before, and her sobs eventually start calming into occasional breathy catches that come tinged with sorrow, instead of overburdened by it.

“V?”

“Hm?”

“I meant what I said here.”

“I know.” She mumbles, unwillingly to move from his chest, desperate to stay. His fingers work circles into her upper back, so until he moves, she won’t either.

“You said you didn’t know if you trusted me… with the whole Smasher situation.”

“I know,” she mumbles again, takes a moment to wipe at rogue tears that cloud her vision, then plants her hand firmly back against his chest. “But I do. I trust you, Johnny, promise.”

Johnny doesn’t say anything else. He moves his hand back to her hair and they sit in the fabricated peace of the sunset in Pacifica, in the room where everything to came to light, for him, for her, for them both, until V eventually wakes up at Vik’s, cobbled together but alive.

Johnny and her never do mention the fight, or the fear or the dreams, even in the two days of bedrest she reluctantly concedes to, since Vik has Misty monitoring her to make sure she doesn’t end up back on his table for overdoing it.

She promises Johnny that she’ll take him to the Afterlife when she’s feeling better, reiterates that she trusts him, and that’s the end of that.

She survives her gigs on boosters and naps in her car, and sometimes, when her nerves won’t let loose, when she still feels on edge, when she’s hyper-aware of every noise outside her car, she feels a hand in her hair as she lingers on the cusp between dreams and reality, a little bit of comfort and home to lull her to sleep.


End file.
